


Sharp

by Not_You



Category: Watchmen (Comic), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Denial, Identity Issues, M/M, Shaving, Trust, massive UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rorschach hates Dan's beard.  So he ambushes him and shaves it off.  In no way is this homosexual.  No, not a bit.  Rorschach also does not have a neck fetish.  Not in the slightest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharp

"Jesus, Rorschach! I'll fucking shave! Just calm down and give me the razor!" Dan is squawking slightly in his panic, and Walter rolls his eyes under the mask.

"Don't be a baby, Daniel. I'm good at this." Dan has never used anything but a safety razor and manages to cut himself often enough that way. The wicked, well-loved straight razor in his partner's hand is enough to give him heart failure. The dull side has faint rust stains and is black with incomplete oxidization, but the cutting edge gleams silver, and Dan bets that if he balanced a feather on it, it would slice in half from its own weight. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to remember the prayer for the dying his grandfather taught him as Rorschach very gently takes his chin in one hand and begins.

The sensation of Rorschach's naked hand is a strange one. He rarely removes his gloves, but apparently shaving cream is something they ought to be kept safe from, so he hadn't been wearing them when he had leapt out of Dan's shower at five a.m. and pinned him to the wall, pulling a can of the stuff from his trenchcoat pocket and coating the offending beard.

Now Dan can feel the his calluses, and stands silent and perfectly still, feeling the faint scrape of the blade on his skin and anxiously awaiting the bite. It never comes. Rorschach is good at this, his hands as dexterous as a surgeon's. Enough time goes by without a nick that he cautiously opens his eyes. The inkblots are right there, pooling in a pattern that looks like a butterfly and tells Dan that Rorschach's cheeks are flushed.

Walter Kovacs is having troubles of his own. It's not that he's never been this close to Dan before. It's that now he has time to notice how good he smells, and he feels something he can't identify, now that his partner is pinned with no choice but to trust Rorschach with his life. His eyes are wide, filled with a helpless expression Walter has never seen. He's been concentrating on the job, on following Dan's jawline up to his ear, carefully, carefully getting the difficult little notch under the nose where most accidents occur. He would never cut Dan. He wipes off the remnants of foam with his sleeve, and lightly runs his fingertips over the bare skin, looking for anything he's missed. It's smooth and perfect, and he swallows hard as he moves down to Dan's neck. There's something beautiful and compelling about it. About how life pulses so close to the surface here. He makes careful strokes with hands that suddenly want to shake, unveiling that smooth column. 

As the blade lightly skates over Dan's adam's apple, Dan makes a sound so soft it almost doesn't happen at all. Walter shivers, and finishes his throat and the underside of his jaw. Of course he has to touch it to make sure he's done a good job. Dan's pulse is rabbiting under his fingertips, and he shivers slightly. He brings the razor up again, delicately scraping an imaginary rough patch. Dan's eyes close again, but it isn't terror this time. And Walter's hand does shake as he draws the tip of the razor across Dan's throat, as if he was cutting it. But the steel passes without a mark. He would never hurt Dan, and if the little mewling sound he just made makes his stomach tighten in a sickening, filthy way, he's not going to admit it.

"R-rorschach?" He whispers, as the razor slides along his pulse, so cold and smooth and deadly.

"Done now." He steps back suddenly, disgusted with himself.

Dan laughs nervously, running his hand up his throat and over his jaw, slowly feeling it. "Heh. I probably do look better without."

Rorschach only nods, pocketing the razor and hopping out the window. Dan rushes to look the way he always does, just to make sure that Rorschach hasn't slipped his grip and broken his neck. Watching him swing down the fire escape, Dan thinks for the umpteenth time that he ought to build him something for this. Maybe some kind of grapnel gun. Still absently fondling his smooth face, he goes to bed and dreams of steel and gentle hands.


End file.
